Ice stop Rangers 5-1

The Cold Lake Jr. B Ice gave the home crowd a show, on Saturday evening, with an impressive 5-1 win over the Vegreville Rangers. With five games left in the season, the team is looking to capture as many wins as possible to secure their place and possible advance in the standings.

“We played well in the first, some simple mistakes that teams are gonna make. We out-chanced and dominated down low… But nothing to show for it,” as the coach explains the score in the first 20 minutes of play was not reflective of the team’s energy and effort.  Shane Whitney opened up the game with a goal from assist of Conner Landry and Bryce Schultheiss. That was followed up by Veg’s sole goal of the game, by  Austin Halliday. It was all Ice after that.

“In the second, we got a couple bad penalties and bad plays. We’ve preached it all year, ‘just shoot the puck’ and next thing you know, it’s 4-1 for us,” Coach Hood says the club started taking those shots and things excelled from there. First with a pair of back-to-back goals, landing in the next just ten seconds apart.  Conner Landry scored an unassisted beauty, that was followed up by  Kole Greenwood, with Bryce Schultheiss on the assist again.  Shane Whitney got his second goal of the evening, with just seconds left in the period, from Steven Kufflick and Coltan Buchta.

The Ice kept the pressure on with  Steven Kufflick getting another goal for the team, with the assist from Shane Whitney and Nelson Schiiler. It was a 5-1 final for the club.”We played well, we kept the puck out of our end and it’s nice to finally get a W on Minor Hockey Night. We have some work to do, but hopefully we’ll carry that forward.”

Saturday evening was also Minor Hockey Night at Imperial Oil Place. Many young fans had the opportunity to come down and meet the players after the game. Coach Hood says it’s moments like that the team can really make a lasting impact on a kid, “that’s what it’s about and what you want to do, create an experience for the kids,” laughing as he adds, “I saw a lot of guys giving away sticks so hopefully we have some sticks for practice on Tuesday.”

The Ice will take to the road for the weekend, making a stop in Vermilion on Friday to take on the Tigers and Saturday in Killiam to take on the Wheat Kings.